"Comrade, your family said that the miscarriage was caused by being pushed down? Could you elaborate?"
The young police officer closed the medical record book.
"Oh dear, it was my good-for-nothing daughter who accidentally..."
Li's mother immediately came over, wanting to explain the whole story for Zhang Chuntao.
"Let the victims speak for themselves!"
The older police officer suddenly interrupted him sternly.
The ward became eerily quiet.
Looking at her husband's warning gaze and then at the police officer's serious face, Zhang Chuntao suddenly remembered the mass of flesh and blood she had seen that morning.
"That heartless Li Xiaorou! She killed my child!"
"Last night, my mother-in-law searched me and found two thousand yuan on me. This morning, I kindly offered her some eggs, and she went crazy and pushed me... She killed my child!"
Her face was covered in tears and snot. She suddenly gripped the bed sheet tightly and burst into a heart-wrenching wail, confessing everything.
"What nonsense are you spouting! Where did you get two thousand from?!"
The Li family's expressions changed drastically, and Li's mother rushed forward to cover her mouth.
"What two thousand yuan? Explain yourself!"
The older policeman grabbed him and pinned him down, his eyes sharp as knives.
Zhang Chuntao had broken down and spilled all the dirty secrets of the Li family: how her mother-in-law stripped her sister-in-law naked, how she found more than two thousand yuan in her underwear, and how she interrogated her about where the rest of the money was hidden.
She became more and more agitated as she spoke, even repeating the vile words her mother used to berate her daughter for selling herself.
"I shouldn't have been so kind! This morning I went to the woodshed just to get her an egg... who knew she would be such a heartless bastard..."
"You killed my child! Li Jianguo, speak up! Is this true? Is this true?!"
Zhang Chuntao sobbed uncontrollably, and seeing Li Jianguo hanging his head, she wailed loudly.
The two police officers exchanged a glance.
The younger man strode out of the ward, and I could vaguely hear him shouting in the corridor to immediately investigate Li Xiaorou's whereabouts.
The older man took out a pen and wrote down the words "huge amount of money involved" heavily in his notebook.
The Li family members slumped into their chairs, their faces ashen.
Li Jianguo's eyes reddened as he recalled his younger sister's resentful look before she left home, and his child—the doctor said it was a boy!
*
No matter how big the turmoil in the Li family became, it couldn't affect the peaceful life of Zi Xi and her newlywed husband.
Sunlight streamed in through the newly pasted window paper. Zixi sat on the edge of the kang (a heated brick bed), her fingertips gently tracing the black and white photo on the marriage certificate.
In the photo, Ji Yanchen sits upright with a tense smile on his lips, while she leans her head on his shoulder, her eyes crinkling with laughter.
"Shall we go to the photo studio tomorrow and take lots of pictures?"
"It will be so interesting to look back on this when I'm old!"
Zi Xi suddenly turned her head and waved the marriage certificate in her hand.
The more she looked at these retro photos, the more she liked them. Taking advantage of the opportunity, she felt she should take more photos to remember the occasion.
Ji Yanchen was squatting by the door polishing her leather shoes when he heard this and looked up.
"OK."
The sunlight gilded his sharply defined face, and his eyes seemed to be sprinkled with stars. His voice was soft, yet it revealed an undisguised joy.
The next morning, Zi Xi got up and prepared as soon as it was light.
She opened the camphor wood chest and took out a mauve dress from the bottom, which was rather retro for this era, with a few delicate plum blossoms carefully embroidered on the hem.
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